diff --git a/.ci/setup.sh b/.ci/setup.sh
index 30d564b2d5f4..ae8ec0bb782b 100755
--- a/.ci/setup.sh
+++ b/.ci/setup.sh
@@ -11,15 +11,18 @@ ARCH=$(uname -m)
 
 
 if [[ $OS_NAME == "macos" ]]; then
+    # Check https://github.com/actions/runner-images/tree/main/images/macos for available
+    # versions of Xcode
+    macos_ver=$(sw_vers --productVersion)
+    if [[ "${macos_ver}" =~ 13. ]]; then
+        xcode_path="/Applications/Xcode_14.3.app/Contents/Developer"
+    else
+        xcode_path="/Applications/Xcode_15.0.app/Contents/Developer"
+    fi
+    sudo xcode-select -s "${xcode_path}" || exit 1
     if  [[ $COMPILER == "clang" ]]; then
         brew install libomp
-        if [[ $AZURE == "true" ]]; then
-            sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode_13.1.0.app/Contents/Developer || exit 1
-        fi
     else  # gcc
-        # Check https://github.com/actions/runner-images/tree/main/images/macos for available
-        # versions of Xcode
-        sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode_14.3.1.app/Contents/Developer || exit 1
         brew install 'gcc@12'
     fi
     if [[ $TASK == "mpi" ]]; then
diff --git a/.github/workflows/r_package.yml b/.github/workflows/r_package.yml
index 66e05a18ba1f..c84664cbd3c6 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/r_package.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/r_package.yml
@@ -18,6 +18,20 @@ env:
   CMAKE_BUILD_PARALLEL_LEVEL: 4
   # on Debian-based images, avoid interactive prompts
   DEBIAN_FRONTEND: noninteractive
+  # Fix issues like the following that can show up running 'R CMD check' on
+  # specific clang versions:
+  #
+  #   * checking for detritus in the temp directory ... NOTE
+  #   Found the following files/directories:
+  #     ‘dsymutil-63923a’ ‘dsymutil-9aa721’ ‘dsymutil-b7e1bb’
+  #
+  # These are unlikely to show up in CRAN's checks. They come from
+  # 'dsymutil ---gen-reproducer' being run (not something LightGBM explicitly does).
+  #
+  # ref:
+  #   - https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/61920
+  #   - https://github.com/golang/go/issues/59026#issuecomment-1520487072
+  DSYMUTIL_REPRODUCER_PATH: /dev/null
   # parallelize compilation (extra important for Linux, where CRAN doesn't supply pre-compiled binaries)
   MAKEFLAGS: "-j4"
   # hack to get around this:
diff --git a/.vsts-ci.yml b/.vsts-ci.yml
index 40424840c82d..24cf71b3d9f4 100644
--- a/.vsts-ci.yml
+++ b/.vsts-ci.yml
@@ -288,7 +288,7 @@ jobs:
     OS_NAME: 'macos'
     PRODUCES_ARTIFACTS: 'true'
   pool:
-    vmImage: 'macOS-12'
+    vmImage: 'macOS-13'
   strategy:
     matrix:
       regular: